


The Past Is Another Country

by HyperKid



Series: Skin Care [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Astrid has heard about this “subtlety” but has neglected to try it, F/M, Flashback, M/M, Multi, Other, Pillow Talk, aromantic!Eodwulf, blumentrio doing science, communication is key, love and sex at the Soltryce Academy, mentions of consensual sex between teens, sexy science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:48:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25911640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyperKid/pseuds/HyperKid
Summary: Molly did say Caleb was going to have to tell him where he learned so much about giving a good facial. It’s pretty much the happiest memories Caleb has of his late teens. But it was Bren who learned.
Relationships: Astrid/Bren, Astrid/Eodwulf, Astrid/Eodwulf/Bren Aldric Ermendrud, Blumentrio - Relationship, Eodwulf/Bren, Widomauk - Relationship
Series: Skin Care [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1576393
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	The Past Is Another Country

**Author's Note:**

> HK: This one has given me the Struggles my dears.   
> Mollymauk: You have been wanting to play with the Blumentrio.   
> HK: I have! We don’t know a lot about their dynamic but it pleases me to imagine Wulf being a shit. However, Bren went to the asylum when he was 17, so no actual sexy times for you.   
> Mollymauk: Firm but fair. And it’s not like that’s the fun part of this particular story anyway.   
> HK: *snickering* No, for once the fun part is Trent.   
> Mollymauk: You’re a bad person.   
> HK: I really am, but so is he so I get to make him suffer.   
> Mollymauk: Like I said, firm but fair. 
> 
> WARNINGS!! Mentions of consensual sex between minors, sexual language, and Eodwulf. He gets his own warning because I love him 
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing and no one and Liam O’brien is responsible for this one cuz it’s on the Caleb playlist

He didn’t have many happy memories of Rexxentrum, not that aren’t shadowed with pain, fear, or uncertainty. But he’d had some. And this one... yeah, it was one of the better ones. Even if it had been right at the end of the good times. 

And here, curled up warm in Molly’s arms? 

Yeah, it could be an okay time to talk about it. 

He could skip all the worst. 

*** 

He’d been freshly fifteen when they’d moved from the Soltryce Academy to Trent Ikithon’s private estates. Fifteen and fully in the throes of puberty, Astrid and Eodwulf with him. 

And oh, Trent had libraries. 

So many books, subjects the teenagers could never have imagined. 

They’d shared a dorm room, all three of them, and that had been its own kind of thrilling. 

Bren and Eodwulf had already begun experimenting, and not just with the kisses or awkward gropings most begun with. No, they were already playing with magic. 

Mage Hands were the most obvious, and old hat even before Bren had shared his first kiss with Astrid. They’d assumed they’d have to stop, at least while she was around. 

Astrid, of course, had been the one to find the more... erotic books. 

** 

“Did Wulf come on your face?” 

The question knocked Bren flat and his jaw dropped, gaping at her. Then his hands flew immediately to his face. 

“Is there something there?” He asked hurriedly, peeking at her from between his fingers. It’d been ~ages~ (a day), there couldn’t still be something there! He couldn’t have been walking around for ~so long~, Eodwulf would have said something. 

To his even greater surprise, Astrid burst out laughing. 

“I suppose that’s an answer,” she teased, carefully placing a bookmark before closing her book and leaning back from the table, balancing her chair in two legs. 

Bren closed his eyes and took a deep breath, wiping his hands across his face. 

Alright, he’d already been as ~absolutely unsmooth~ as it was possible to be. The conversation couldn’t get worse? 

“Why did you ask?” He managed to sound almost normal, leaning forward and frowning across the table at her. He hadn’t known she even knew he and Wulf were fucking. 

Astrid shrugged, righting her chair and fishing out a slim book from her pile and pushed it over. 

“I found this in the library the other day. Some Markesian wizard’s notes about his experiments with sex and magic, and at the end he had all these daily rituals he did to keep himself looking young.” She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. 

About to pick up the book, Bren flushed red to the tips of his ears. 

“S... Sex and magic?” He repeated slowly, hoping he had heard her wrong. 

He had definitely made a mistake. 

This was getting a lot... not worse? Maybe? But fucking uncomfortable to talk about with a girl he would very much have liked to do more than kiss. 

Unless she was talking about it because she was interested? 

Nope. Nope. Not going to get his hopes up. This was just something interesting she’d found, and now he looked like a total fucking dork and a prude and she’d laugh at him again. 

She was looking at him strangely, just the faintest hint of a smile curling her lips. She’d never actually seen him so... wrong footed. 

“Would you like to talk about something else?” She offered, folding her arms on the table and leaning in. Propping her boobs on her arms and pushing them up and the top button of her tunic was open and he couldn’t actually see anything and it was ridiculous and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. 

Snatching the book like a lifeline, he shook his head quickly. 

“No, no, this is fine. Daily rituals?” There was just a hint of a squeak in his voice, one he’d thought had left forever when his voice first dropped more than a year before. 

Something like disappointment flicked across Astrid’s face and she leaned back, flicking short brown hair off her face. 

“He recommended having semen rubbed into his skin to keep it moisturized. And I noticed that patch of dry skin by your chin’s finally gone away.” 

Experiments in shaving had not gone well. 

Bren’s hand went automatically to his chin to rub. When he realized she was right, his cheeks flushed even darker. 

“And you thought...” 

“I didn’t know if you did it on purpose,” Astrid corrected with a sly smile, now propping her elbows on the table and interlacing her fingers. “I’m going to guess no.” 

Bren couldn’t take his eyes off her, utterly at sea and not sure where the hell this conversation could possibly go next. 

“Do... do you think it works?” He finally managed, hands falling to the book once more. Yeah, he might like to see what someone else was doing with sex and magic. If the wizard had done anything with women, maybe he could even ask Astrid... 

Who shrugged, grinning in that way that meant she was definitely enjoying his discomfort. 

“Evidence suggests, though I don’t have enough data to really say.” 

Okay, that sounded like flirting. It might be? 

It couldn’t be. 

Astrid wouldn’t. 

Probably? 

Bren nearly fell off his chair when Eodwulf emerged from behind a bookshelf. It was stupid, Wulf wouldn’t care, they’d talked about it several times. He even knew about Bren’s hopeless crush on Astrid, and had futilely pushed him to talk to her. 

“You call that subtle?” The taller boy asked, snickering as he made his way to the table and spun a chair around to straddle. 

Astrid stuck her tongue out at him. 

“Well I’m not going to strip down and present myself in the library, Eodwulf.” 

“You’d have to for him to get it,” Wulf shot back, now grinning at Bren, “you’re going to do him an injury.” 

They seemed to both be in on something, but it was just a little hard for Bren to focus on what. He was a little busy reeling from the whole thing. And then Astrid gave him that smile again, the one where she was very much enjoying his consternation. 

“I’ll kiss it better.” 

Oh. 

She was saying that. 

It must have made an audible click, because Eodwulf burst out laughing. 

“I TOLD you just to ask her!” 

Cheeks somehow flaming even brighter, Bren cast a quick Mage Hand to shove him off his chair. Without flinching Eodwulf called his own, catching Bren’s by the wrist. 

Neither were prepared for Astrid’s to come and yank Eodwulf’s chair legs out from under him, toppling him to the floor. 

“Anyway.” Astrid rested her chin on her laced fingers and grinned at Bren. “I’m still going to need more data.” 

Eodwulf’s head popped back up above the rim of the table, brows furrowed. 

“You’re not making that shit up?” He asked incredulously. 

Bren wordlessly handed him the book, still not quite able to take his eyes of Astrid. 

It wasn’t a dream come true. In the dream version, he’d much prefer to feel less like an idiot. 

And like he was the only person who’d been missing the joke. 

But hey, he had one up on Eodwulf for this at least. 

Astrid looked offended by the implication. 

“Why would I make something like that up?” 

“I don’t know your kinks.” It came out before he really had time to think about it, but it made both of his companions laugh, and it felt good. 

Bren felt himself relax just a little. 

This probably was actually a good thing. All he had to do was... be himself. He was a prodigy, they all were. They could make this work. 

And of course... Astrid had already given them a research project. 

** 

Of course, highly trained young wizards required extensive testing before coming to conclusions. Astrid snuck the book from the library and they used it as both guide and inspiration for the next few months of their tuition. 

There were a lot of questions to be answered and over time they got through almost all of them. Bren was a little annoyed that Eodwulf hadn’t bothered mentioning that he’d been sleeping with Astrid too, but he more than made it up to the pair of them. 

Eodwulf wasn’t really interested in the relationship aspect in the same way Bren had been considering, not with Bren, Astrid, or a combination of the two. But even when Bren finally got up the courage to ask Astrid out, neither even considered telling Eodwulf they’d have to stop playing together. 

They’d come up from Blumenthal together, stayed together against all the odds. Eodwulf not being interested in dating or romance was no reason for them not to take what intimacy he was interested in. They were a set, three together against the world, no matter what came their way. Being separated was unthinkable. 

Though it came close when Master Ikithon walked in on them. 

It was pretty much the worst possible thing Bren could have imagined happening at that time in his life. For all that he’d experienced in his short life, he had been terribly unimaginative. 

Not that it wasn’t sufficiently a school nightmare to have your most fearsome and respected professor walk in on you on your knees before your classmate, face upturned for a load of come, while your girlfriend lay naked on the other side of the dormitory massaging your load into her face. 

About the only thing in the world that Caleb still credited the man for was his response. He’d just turned, and walked away. 

And no one ever found out why he’d come to the dorms that day. And he never did it again. 

** 

Even without all the relevant context, Molly dissolved into cackles as the story ended. This far removed, Caleb could see the funny side too, lips ticking up into a slight smile as he cuddled up to his tiefling companion. 

There had turned out to be many, many worse things than being walked in on by your mentor in sexual situations. The sheer mortification he’d felt at the time was even funny now in comparison, if tinged with his usual self loathing. 

Fighting a grin, he cleared his throat, arm wrapping more tightly around Molly’s waist. 

“Yes... well... we performed quite extensive research.” 

Still gently snickering Molly pressed a kiss to his cheek. 

“I suppose you have nothing more to learn on the subject, then?” He asked teasingly. Caleb hummed noncommittally. 

“We never did any real research on tiefling physiology...” he let it trail off suggestively, eager to close that door to the past with something more present. 

“Oh, well, then I’ll have to help you complete that research.” Exactly as expected, Molly’s hand slipped down to grip his ass. 

Not many people could read a room better, and he knew so much better than to pry. Caleb honestly couldn’t imagine who else he could ever have broached such a subject with, even as innocent as it seemed. Knowing that Molly would let it drop on a whim, would never bring it up again, would never push or even seem mildly interested, was a blessing. 

One that made it so, so easy to curl up in the tiefling’s arms, to let their reassuring heat wrap around him and keep him safe. Grounded in the present. And just maybe grope the hell out of him for the next few hours so he didn’t have a chance of drifting into darker recollections. 

**Author's Note:**

> HK: It’s nice to finally have this one over and done with so I can get back to the smutty adventures of this otherwise overly pornographic series! But, it needed a little Blumentrio softness. And a little crack. And a little Gilmore! Because we all know whose book that was.


End file.
